The present invention was conceived against a background that takes account of diverse and often conflicting factors present in the bottled beverage industry, the bottle manufacturing industry and consumers of beverages. Therefore, it is appropriate to provide a broader overview to enable the skilled reader to appreciate the merit of the proposed solutions in providing bottled beverages to consumers at a point of sale or dispensing location.
Billions of rigid and semi-rigid bottles made of glass and plastic materials, such as PET (Polyethylene Terephtalate) and PE, are manufactured annually using well know techniques and materials, such as by blow moulding, spin-casting etc. The bottles are produced by specialist manufacturers and transported empty to bottling companies, where the bottles are filled with a variety of liquids for consumption by end-users. From the bottling factories, product is then distributed to points of sale, such as super markets, restaurants and vending machines, often over thousands of kilometers. Blow moulded PET bottles have in particular found favour over the years and to a large extent have replaced glass bottles, as these are lighter in weight, and thus less costly to freight. However, transport costs of empty bottles are still high, as freight is also charged based on volume.
A further drawback that exists with existing beverage bottles is that whereas many of the conventional rigid and semi-rigid bottles used are recyclable, a great many are dumped and occupy large physical volumes in the collection, removal, transport, disposal and landfill processes. The bottled beverage market using rigid or semi-rigid bottles is therefore environmentally highly negative, despite the ‘recyclable’ nature of the bottles.
Brick, gable-top and otherwise shaped ‘cartons’ are also widely used for storing and dispensing liquids, compare the ubiquitous milk cartons found in a local supermarket. The cartons comprise a multi-layer composite plastic and cardboard blank which is folded and welded (or otherwise glued) into a shape defining a liquid holding cavity which is filled prior to the carton being sealed-off into its final shape. Brick shaped cartons are also used as juice containers with various filling volumes (typically 100 to 2000 ml), and as of relatively recently may also incorporate a separate, rigid plastic pouring/dispensing neck with threaded closure cap fixed to one of the gable walls. Because of the nature of manufacture and filling of these type of liquid containers, large centralised filling (‘bottling’) stations are required, from where the filled cartons are then shipped to points of sale, again often over large distances and in bulky fashion.
It is also known to ‘bottle’ beverage liquids, in particular juices, in pouches made of flexible foil materials, which have a certain degree of rigidity but remain malleable once filled, and therefore can be displayed on shelves for purchase in an upright, self-supporting manner. Such pouches loose shape stability as they dispense their contents during use, and are thus typically sized to provide single serve liquid amounts, typically between 100 and 330 ml. Once emptied, these pouches are easily flattened (as can be the above described cartons) and require therefore less landfill size for disposal. Most beverage pouches are made of composite materials that are susceptible to recycling, and thus go some way in addressing some of the concerns noted above. However, beverage pouch filling operations are currently effected at larger filling facilities and the concomitant high transport and storage costs for the filled pouches to reach the point of consumption noted above in the context of rigid bottles still apply.
Furthermore, beverage-filled pouches have not found wide-spread consumer acceptance, possibly because of tactile misapprehensions in that the malleable nature of such pouches fosters ease of deformation during dispensing, which thus requires such pouches to be provided with a straw for dispensing its liquid contents into the mouth of a person. Newer pouch designs incorporate a rigid plastic pouring/filling neck component that is welded to a side wall of the pouch during its manufacture; the neck itself has an external or internal thread for sealingly supporting a screw-cap member (with security/tamper indication functionality) that enables the pouch to be re-closed; pouring of the liquid, as done with conventionally shaped bottles, is thereby enabled. Nonetheless, the malleable nature of the pouch remains a drawback for many users.
Collapsible, bladder-type containers are also widely used in the purified water and wine industry; in the wine industry in Australia these are known as wine casks. A variety of plastic material-based foils have been used for this purpose since the 1960s and are well proven to provide safe storage of wine, water and other liquids. Typically, the films used in the manufacture of the bladders consist of laminates of at least two materials, often involving a metallisation layer to improve barrier properties. The flexible bladders can be stored with, minimum space requirements prior to filling, and collapse essentially into a flat body when empty, like a flattened pillow-case. For point of sale dispensing, the bladders themselves are typically contained within, and supported by, a rigid card-board container to simplify handing. Because the bladder is flexible and mobile and hence very awkward to hold, without the external cardboard container, such bladders are impractical to use.
Finally, collapsible containers for holding liquids and which have inflatable walls to provide a semi-rigid body, when inflated, are also known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,751,953 discloses a cylindrical close-ended container having a double-skinned peripheral wall, bottom and top. A series of valve armatures embedded in the circular end walls serve to enable and control air flow from within the inner cavity of the container (defined or enveloped by the inner skin of the walls) into the pressurising cavity formed between the inner and outer skins of the peripheral and end walls. A filling armature bridges both skins between the inner cavity and the outside of the container to allow filling of the erected (ie inflated) container and dispensing of liquid there from. The principle of imparting rigidity to such inflatable containers is well known in that when flexible, air (liquid) impermeable material foils are sealed to form an inner chamber and the latter is subsequently filled with a liquid (eg air) and pressurised, the flexible foil body becomes ‘rigid’ and attains a shape dictated by the inflation chamber(s) geometry. In a ‘deflated’ state, the peripheral wall collapses into an accordion-like pleated configuration either by itself or when the upper end wall is pushed towards the lower end wall, depending on the thickness of the skins that make up the wall.
Canadian patent document CA 2,034,944, which is also related to inflatable vessels for holding liquids, although wide mouthed, ie a mug, correctly identifies a shape stability problem that exists with cylindrical-bodied, double-walled inflatable vessels having a large height compared to the diameter of its circular bottom. The question comes down to welding (or otherwise sealingly joining) the two sheets or foils that make up the peripheral upright walls of the container in such manner that once inflated, the container is form-stable (or rigid) enough in its inflated state to allow handling during filling, transport and when used by a consumer as a beverage bottle to dispense its contents in secure and controlled manner. A particular problem arises in the context of providing an inflatable liquid container of the type having planar side walls, eg a quadrilateral or multi-faceted bottle, where individual side wall panes adjoin along a vertical welding seam that extends over a substantial portion of the height of the bottle. When inflated, even small pressure exerted simultaneously at oppositely located vertical edges of the bottle would lead to distortion of the bottle, akin to the deformation which a square would undergo into a rhombus when oppositely directed forces are applied to the corners of the square.
From a cost point of view, it is well known that branded bottled water shipped internationally in individual bottles results in a product often more expensive per liter than petrol. For example, water from the European Alps, would typically be purified at the point of extraction/origin, and bottled in a large scale, local, bottling plant. It would then be put into cartons and pallets and put into a local warehouse. It would subsequently be handled many times through rail, truck and ship transport systems as well as several warehouses, to deliver it to the end destination warehouse. From here, it would be transported by truck to either a refrigerated vending machine or a retail outlet, which often uses refrigerated display cabinets.
The many handling, storage and transport steps associated with such approach are costly and have a large carbon foot-print. In the case of domestic bottled water, as opposed to imported bottled water, the number of handling and transport steps are reduced, but are still very significant in both cost and carbon footprint.
In contrast, tap or municipal water is widely available and indeed water fountains where people may drink mains water, which is treated to potable standards, are not uncommon in many countries. Sanitary concerns remain due to the public accessible nature of such water dispensing facilities. Tap water is of course also available at most food outlet locations, and other commercial retail locations. Even in countries where tap water is not necessarily treated at a central facility to meet WHO standards, it is easily able to be processed locally to a quality comparable to or exceeding that of bottled water using methods well known to those skilled in the art of potable water. A wide variety of filter technologies is readily available to achieve this with the highest standard being achieved by reverse osmosis (RO) filtering. For the volume of drinking water typically required by a retail outlet, the required filtering equipment is small, and could be readily mounted within the confines of typically sized bottled water dispensing (vending) machines or refrigerators (2000×1000×900 mm).
It is also known that purified water with no additives or with selected additives to simulate mineral waters, for example, and carbonated and flavoured beverages, can be produced (ie mixed) at the physical location of its point of sale, eg as is customarily done at fast food outlets, bars, etc. Such approach provides considerable savings over the cost of a centralised bottling of conventional bottled beverages (be it water or soft drinks) in large scale facilities and its subsequent transport, warehousing and refrigeration as described above. Known flavouring and carbonating equipment can be incorporated within the volumetric confines of typical dispensing (and vending) machines, and dispensed into cups and similar open mouthed containers.
Perhaps equally common are hot beverage dispensing machines for coffee, tea, chocolate and similar drinks, where a beverage is prepared on demand by percolating heated water through a cartridge or other permeable container containing, eg, granules of instant coffee and dispensing the resultant favoured beverage into a cup. Self-contained automatic coffee vending machines are well known in the art of beverage vending machines, in particular in the USA. Such machines incorporate, within a common housing, discrete units and stations that co-operate in preparing and dispensing a beverage made on demand. To this end, a supply of nested paper or polystyrene cups is stored in a dedicated zone of the vending machine and dispensed into a filling station where the hot beverage (could also be cold, of course) prepared in a separate zone, is filled into the cup. A customer can then remove the filled cup, whereby some machines are known which also store lids which are dispensed and fitted onto the rim of the cup, after the cup is filled, to help against spilling of the hot beverage whilst handled by a customer.
Against all this background information, it would be desirable to devise a container/bottle for holding liquids which meets one or more (preferably all) of the following requirements: (i) can be stored using minimum space in a collapsed state prior to being filled with a liquid; (ii) can be erected prior to or during filling with liquid contents into a vessel resembling conventional beverage containers, at a point of sale or dispensing of the bottle; (iii) once filled with liquid, exhibit sufficient rigidity and shape-stability to allow handling by a user in a manner similar to PET or similar bottles and withstand forces typically encountered during normal handling, in particular remain shape-stable when drinking there from; (iv) be re-sealable after opening; (v) after emptying can be collapsed into its original state for disposal or recycling.
It would be further desirable to devise an inflatable, double-walled bottle blank which can be erected, ie shaped by inflation, into a bottle-shaped container with an internal cavity for receiving a beverage, at a bottled beverage point of sale location, which once erected is able to maintain a degree of rigidity in its deployed or erected shape, and which incorporates a bottle closure mechanism that can be re-closed on demand.
It would also be beneficial to devise a manufacturing method for such inflatable, double-skinned bottle which minimises component count, eg manufacture an inflatable bottle using a minimum of discrete components, preferably only two sheets or foils of weldable plastic film.
It would also be advantageous to provide an inflatable bottle design and manufacturing method which provides for an integral bottle closure mechanism, ie a design that dispenses with the need for a separate (although integrated) screw-cap or similar type of removable closure element at a dispensing spout or neck of the bottle. If a tamper indicator element can be incorporated to indicate an un-opened state of the bottle, the better.
Equally, it would be advantageous to provide a design in which the elements required to provide an inflation valve and deflation mechanism for the inflation chamber(s) of the bottle, required to erect and deflate it, are made integral with the bottle, eg make use of the same materials used in manufacturing the bottle/container.
Finally, it would also be desirable to utilise an existing mains water dispensing location (eg a fixed tap) and make use of such inflatable, point of dispensing erectable bottles in providing a new type of bottled beverage dispensing system.
In the context of this patent specification, it will be appreciated that the term ‘bottle’ is used as a generic term to encompass containers having a vast variety of shapes commonly used for storing all types of liquids for human (or animal) consumption, such as encountered in or typical of glass or plastic beverage bottles and prismatic containers such as milk cartons, etc. Consequential to being concerned with containers for holding liquids, terms such as ‘bottom’, ‘top’, ‘side’, ‘height’ and similar are used to provide relative reference locations of parts/portions of such container and are not to be understood in the absolute sense; as is known, there are bottle designs intended to be stored ‘up side down’ with the dispensing orifice pointing ‘downward’, ie the bottom of the bottle would in such case be located above or on top of the dispensing orifice.
Equally, the terms ‘liquid’ and ‘beverage’ can be used interchangeably, in so far as these encompass water, flavoured drinks, carbonated drinks, juices, milk etc and other consumable liquids such as soups, graveys etc, which are typically filled into bottles for storage and subsequent pouring there from. The term ‘fluid’ on the other hand is used to denote liquids and gases such as can be used to ‘inflate’ and pressurise an inflatable, deformable, but preferably inelastic, bladder into an erected double skinned or walled vessel or container, eg air, water under pressure, etc.